An Almost Midsummer Night's Parody
by SongGrail
Summary: What it sounds like from the title- a parody (being not quite midsummer yet) of Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream with FF7 chars. Now, can we all say


A/N: There are going to be some major spoilers ahead for all/most of the games involved. Just pretend you don't see them. Obtain a memory-erasing device (knocking yourself unconscious by beating your head against the wall is a good method). But don't complain if the game is ruined for you because you read something in a fanfic. As a side note, I'm very sorry about the formatting. I'm not sure exactly how ff.net does it translating from Word documents. Speaking of spoilers. . . *takes out a clothespin and makes it "speak" in time with the author in a high-pitched, squeaking voice* Hello there, audience! Obsessed fans! Escaped mental patients! Obsessed fans who are escaped mental patients! Since that's our main target audience, I'll just stop there. The author doesn't own FF7, because if the author did, the author wouldn't be making an idiot of itself by speaking via a clothespin to the audience to tell the audience that the author doesn't own any of the games mentioned in this fic. (Yes, that's what I said earlier.) Non-profit. There. The two most beautiful words in the English language when you're trying to avoid being sued. Now- let the randomness ensue! Have a kupo nut time!  
  
[Scene: The ShinRa Building, the 70th floor, Rufus' Office, 10:20 AM]  
  
Rufus (FF7): *pacing back and forth* I can't believe I have to wait a full week for the legal issues to be sorted out before I inherit my father's fortune! What am I going to do for a week?  
  
[2 Hours Later]  
  
[Rufus runs into his office up the staircase panting, Dark Nation closely following him. There are numerous high-pitched squeals coming from down the staircase.]  
  
Rufus: All right, so much for the "make even more money to add to the pile by guest-starring in another fanfic" idea. *shudders* You know you might be dressing a little too ambiguously when you can't tell the cross-dressing fans apart from the female fans.  
  
Voice From Down The Stairs: Seifer! Sweetie! Come back here! I promise I won't let any authors write another lemon fanfic about you! Squall I can't make any promises about- he seems to be a rather promiscuous kid, at least in the fanfiction world- but I won't let them hurt you! I'll just use you for vaguely-hinted-at bedroom purposes as my slave!  
  
Rufus: Wha. . .the. . . I can't believe she would think that I would do something like. . . SEIFER?! *sighs* All right, Rufus, compose yourself. *flicks back his bangs* It wouldn't do to muss up your hair; it's already been styled to perfection by the Anti-Hero Anti-Gravity field Hojo invented. (Pre-order yours today. Hey, it worked for Sephiroth, Cloud, and Zack, at least while all of them were still in SOLDIER. There's the small radiation side-effect which has a 99% chance of making your arms and legs mutate into huge disproportional blocks when not being filmed for movies or in battle, but just look at those spikes! Well, that, and the fact that the drug. . ehehe. . . by which I mean hair gel. . . is highly contagious and is spread to other characters, even NPCs, simply by breathing the same air as them.)  
  
Dark Nation: Meow. *casts Barrier on Rufus*  
  
Rufus: Not now Dark Nation, we're not in battle.  
  
Dark Nation: Meow. *casts Barrier on a random potted plant in Rufus' office*  
  
Rufus: *sarcastically* Oh, and I was planning to shoot that plant later, too, and the family of spiders probably living there. *looks up* What's with the stupid exposition, author?  
  
Author: Don't you have better things to do with your time than talk to the ceiling?  
  
Rufus: Yes! I could get this job done and go back to flicking my bangs out of my face and sitting around waiting for a sequel to FF7 that now will never happen! [quietly] Er, so, how much am I getting paid for this anyway?  
  
Author: You're not. Haven't you ever read the disclaimers at the top of fanfics? We don't own you, so we can't pay you. No matter what some fanfiction authors think.  
  
Rufus: WHAT?! I could make more by going to the slums of Midgar and selling my "services". In fact, why don't I go do that instead of doing a role in this fanfic?  
  
Author: Keep your voice down. Isn't there some meeting on the floor below you? Speaking of which. . . Ahh, the power of suggestion. . .  
  
[On the 63rd floor of the ShinRa building]  
  
Reeve: Was it just me, or did any of you hear the President say just now that he would go to the slums of Midgar to-  
  
Scarlet: That was. . .an. . .odd. . .sentence out of context. Er. Forget the "out of context" part.  
  
Hojo: *suddenly* Ooh! The tea's done brewing! *jumps out of his seat at the meeting table* I hope everyone likes the latest version of my mind-control drug. Of course, I've slowly been weaning you all onto it anyway, so you will not have heard anything I just said after I speak the code words. OVERRIDE B-1.  
  
Heidegger: Yes. Serve. Us. The. Tea. Master.  
  
Scarlet: This. Equals. Delicious.  
  
Reeve: Hojo, I haven't had any of your tea for several weeks since I was in prison for helping Cloud. Your mind games won't work on this executive.  
  
Hojo: Remember that time that the President was making hilarious out of context comments a few minutes ago?  
  
Reeve: Yes. . .  
  
Hojo: Now remember the time that ShinRa sent the Huge Materia into outer space in that rocket?  
  
Reeve: Yes, I was there. Or Cait Sith was, at any rate. . . er. . . well. . .we were all walking around in Cloud anyway, so I suppose that we were all there.  
  
Hojo: I could make a funny comment about the fact that all heroes walk around in one body, except in the ungodly FF8, but I won't. Remember when I went into Gast's house and killed him and took Aeris and Ifalna to the Shinra labs?  
  
Reeve: No, but Cloud saw it anyway, so we all saw it. Hojo, what's the point?  
  
Hojo: No point. *hurriedly* But you're not thinking about mind-controlling tea anymore, are you?  
  
Reeve: What about tea? Some would be good right now, thank you.  
  
Hojo: Excellent. Bless every hero's inability to think about the main objective of a quest for more than five minutes. [Think chocobos, think Gold Saucer. . .]  
  
[Back on the 70th floor]  
  
Rufus: What was that?  
  
Author: OVERRIDE B-1?  
  
Rufus: As much as the two are similar, this isn't Hereti-Corp.  
  
Author: . . . . . . . . . . .  
  
Rufus: I wonder how many readers got that reference?  
  
Author: No problem, I'll just do what every good TV station or fanfiction author- well, actually a really bad TV station or fanfic author- does when they run out of ideas: show a 5 minute long commercial break pre-empting any good shows that may have been on that night.  
  
Rufus: But you already-  
  
Author: Cut to commercial.  
  
Rufus: -used that idea in-  
  
Author: For the love of Holy, why isn't the commercial going?  
  
Rufus- another-  
  
Author: For Alexander's sake! *manifests, walks up to the camera, and kicks the tripod several times until it falls over with the camera balanced on it, taking the video out* Wait, there's more. *looks up at the numerous cameras hidden at every angle in the ceiling* Well, now we know how they do those nauseating battle camera sweeps. Rufus, let me look at your inventory.  
  
Rufus: Do you want the herbs, the swords, the house? *pulls a package marked "Instant House" out and pulls a tab on the package; an entire inflatable house arises in the room*  
  
Author: Here, hold this herb for me while I figure out why the camera isn't working.  
  
Rufus: Ooh, sorry, no can do. I'm already carrying 99 herbs. But I'll be glad to carry. . . *checks inventory* 97 more longswords for you if you want.  
  
Author: So you can carry 99 longswords that probably weigh over a ton- literally- but only carry 99 herbs that weigh less than 5 grams?  
  
Rufus: It's well known that the laws of physics as they apply to your world only apply to this world when. . . well. . . er. Look, just be glad there's no Float in this game. . . . Author?  
  
Author: *off from the side* And if you don't bring Terranigma over to the U.S., I'm collapsing the 59th Street Bridge! Now, which country do you like less, France or Italy?  
  
Random Squenix Employee: *also off from the side, probably off camera* (translated from Japanese) What are you talking about? Help! I'm being attacked by a polygonal representation of a fan!  
  
Random Squenix Employee's Supervisor: (translated from Japanese) It was in your job description! Better this author than the ones who demand to know why they couldn't just revive her with a Phoenix Down! *notices a legion of knights over a random hill out the 70th floor window shouting "Get on with it!"* Get on with the story already! I'm busy with FF X-2! I've got to stare at Yuna's- er, that is, design more costumes for it and make the translation easy enough to understand for the Americans. *waves hands around and all the cameras simultaneously start showing commercials*  
  
[Scene: Airsrock, Australia, the "Earth" of the game Terranigma.]  
  
Ark (Terranigma): Hey, wannabe heroes! Are you troubled by having to lug your house around everywhere you go?  
  
[Scene: Battle in the Lunar Dungeon, FF4.]  
  
Pink Puff: Hero people, why are you carrying a cottage on your backs?  
  
Cecil: You can talk?!  
  
Pink Puff: Think about it. We're the only enemy in any Final Fantasy to be smart enough to avoid the main party most of the time. We're not about to willingly meet with the people who slaughtered 50 Behemoths on their way over.  
  
Rosa: Sensible. Then how do you get caught?  
  
Pink Puff: We're curious about adventurers who carry whole houses on their backs. It's our only natural weakness; we simply have to ask them, but most of the time they slaughter us before we can ask, saying something about some sort of Tail. How do you support that thing, anyway? We've been meaning to ask a party of adventurers for centuries but the last human we ran into was FuSoYa, and all he would repeat were things about some person named KluYa. It was an extremely unproductive day for us, but we did manage to get the floors of the Lunar Dungeon nice and clean with our new mop. So, how are you carrying an entire house on your back?  
  
Cecil: Er. . . why, we're on the moon! There's much less gravity here than on Earth.  
  
Pink Puff: Oh. So why's there an atmosphere so you humans can breathe, or do you not breathe and perform anaerobic respiration, which is very inefficient for someone of your size? And what about the moon dragons? Do they need to breathe?  
  
Edge: Yeah Cecil, are you really carrying those 5 cottages by yourself?  
  
Rosa: And why do enemies carry things that we can steal? Where do they stick them? If random monsters are intelligent enough to take treasure off dead adventurers' corpses- assuming other parties of adventurers have been to the moon- why do they attack the party that just killed 50 of their same species while going to meet them?  
  
Cecil: Quiet! Cease! I'm starting to actually think of the logic! *the house on Cecil's back suddenly crashes to the ground on top of him, crushing him and most everything living on the battle screen*  
  
[Scene: Airsrock]  
  
Ark: Running out of party members to stick your extra weapons onto/into?  
  
[Scene: The Overworld of Gaia, FF9.]  
  
Eiko: Teehee! Thanks for asking me to come with you to the Chocobo Forest, Zidane! *giggles* I knew you weren't really mean enough to leave me hanging in the menu screen every time I wasn't needed for a plot point!  
  
Zidane: Er, yeah. Eiko, could you hold these 99 Mage Mashers for me? I would ask you to hold less of them at one time, but some force is restraining me. I think it's the author's concept called "contrivance".  
  
Eiko: *smartly* Sorry, Zidane, I'm already holding one. If I were to hold 99 more, that would push me to the mystical "100" amount, which as we know, would cause a rip in the space/time continuum of this game if any character, or rather any non-NPC, were to acquire 100 of any item. *normally* But I'm touched that you would trust a six-year-old who thinks she can talk to Mogs and has been living for herself for most of her life and is probably psychotic from loneliness, around those 99 daggers! *angrily* Rrrr. . .Dagger. . . *hissing* The Ring. . . preciousss. . . *normally* Try asking Quina if it can hold them.  
  
Zidane: Nahh, I think it's starting to catch on to what we're doing.  
  
Eiko: Huh?  
  
Zidane: *sarcastically* Well, there's only so many times you can ask it "Hey, Quina, how many swords do you think you can swallow at one time? I bet you this longsword it's not more than 98!" without it noticing that something's being exploited.  
  
Eiko: Just paint the sword like a frog, toss it into a swamp, and tell Quina that a frog just jumped in.  
  
Zidane: Why Eiko, that's uncharacteristic of you. I mean, I'm proud that you're learning, but it'll still take a while. I'll call Quina in.  
  
[A few moments later.]  
  
Quina: *panting and slobbering as it runs up to Zidane and Eiko* I here! I help, Zidane!  
  
Zidane: *narrows eyes; in low voice* Indeed.  
  
*it starts thundering and pouring on the world map- and they're not even anywhere near Burmecia!- as Zidane stares into Quina's eyes intently; organ music plays in the background*  
  
Quina: *breaking the spell* Ooh! Frog! *hops away after an anthropomorphic flower that is running away from Quina*  
  
Zidane: *turns to Eiko and once again glares; the organ music strikes up again* We'll need somewhere. . .else. . .to put all our sharp weaponry now. . .  
  
Eiko: *gasps* Noooooooo. . . . !!!!. . . wait, Zidane, it's almost lunchtime! Er, look over there! A meteor's about to fall and crush part of the planet! I mean, an insane clown just broke the continents into smaller pieces! Your evil brother from the moon is going to kidnap your love interest, whom you will get back in exchange for crystals! A tree is going to attempt to take over the world/s by melding them together! *runs away*  
  
Zidane: *intensely, still staring at where Eiko was* All right. You win for now, but I'll be back. For you do not know the trials I have endured to become the person I am today. Back when you least expect it, to blast you down to 1 HP and leave you alive. For I have been . . . to Kuja's school of villainry. *normally* Well, I was created on the same planet as him, so it was kind of like living in the same house with him, even though he turned to villainy right around the time I was created and left Terra, so I wouldn't know. Does that count? *looks around* Eiko? Quina?  
  
[Scene: Airsrock]  
  
Ark: You need. . .the RPG Backpack! Every party of 9's need- a backpack to share between them! It features a pocket dimension which, when activated, will warp your items to the pocket dimension from which you can retrieve your items later by flipping this switch the other way.*quietly, whispering to the camera* Just make sure you get a good model; don't scrimp. Mine came with some pink flying thing in it who tried to kill me eventually and it only held 9 of each item.  
  
Darkside Yomi: Ark! I heard that! Are you putting people off buying our product again?  
  
Ark: *screams and jumps off the cliff that is Airsrock*  
  
Darkside Yomi: *quickly and quietly* No refunds in case of things in backpack that are Key Items, plot characters, plot items, etc. that came with the bag and that you wish to be rid of. Because you can't get rid of them anyway. *smiles and flashes peace at the camera as best as a flying pink 16-bit blob can*  
  
[Fade to black. . . cd whirring noises are heard. . . please insert Chapter 2.]  
  
All right, randomness mostly over with, unless the feeling really takes me and I have to write another chapter like this. Oh, and as a note, I don't really hate any of the FFs I make fun of. Even FF8. (please don't hurt me, FF8 fans. . .) In fact, I parody because I love. Make sense?  
  
Casting of main FF7 Characters for A Midsummer Night's Dream adaptation- Act 1, Scene 1 begins next chapter. Minor character roles to be thought of later. Yessss. . . the roles ought to be enough to appease those crazy fans. . .  
  
Cloud: Demetrius  
  
Zack: Lysander  
  
Aeris: Helena  
  
Tifa: Hermia  
  
Rufus: Theseus  
  
Dark Nation: Hippolyta  
  
Cait Sith: Puck (Robin Goodfellow)  
  
Cid: Bottom  
  
Vincent: Oberon  
  
Lucrecia: Titania 


End file.
